Hello, McFly! You know when you know something, and YOU know you know it, but you don't know that others don't know you know it and therefore they don't know it? Welcome to my life! I got to be on the receiving end of this recently (ok, well more than once) when I learned this super-awesome handy little trick from Michelle Armstrong, who learned it from Kasey Bell, who learned it from Alice Keeler, who probably invented it because she's just that smart! See? This is how and why we share - so others can know what we know, you know?! Let me set this up for you:

You have a Google _________ (Doc, Drawing, Sheet, Presentation . . . ) you've made. You want to share it so that others will have a copy of it, but you don't want them to have YOUR copy of it because chances are they don't know how to use it responsibly and they'll delete it or change it or who knows what. You know you could set it so that Mr. Blankety Blank of blanketyblank@school.org can "View Only," then before he starts complaining, tell him that he needs to go to the File menu, click "Make a Copy," rename it how he wants, yada-yada-yada, but you don't trust him or yourself that this will go smoothly. What to do?!?!

I'm going to show you 3 options:

Take the Long RoadShare the document with Mr. Blankey Blank. Set his options to "View Only." Tell him that, when he opens the file, he needs to go to the File Menu, click on "Make A Copy" (hey, wait a minute - this sounds familiar!), then rename it (if he wants to) to something that will be meaningful to him. While he's at it, he could also click back on the File menu and move it to a pre-destined folder. THIS WORKS! I've done it, and it was my method of choice until I found out about the other options below. This nice thing about it is that it forces people to take a look at what else might be hiding out in those menus - there are some useful options there!

Let Him Preview ItCopy the URL from the document you want to share. It looks like this:

Now when you send him the modified URL, what he will see is a version of the document that looks like your version, but he won't have ANY menu options at all. He can read it and print it from his browser's File menu, but no editing or messing shall he do.

A word on this one (and the next): Depending on the file you are sharing, that "edit" word may come in a different place within the URL. It is always near the end - just be sure to only change that one word and leave the rest to do its job.

Prompt Him to Make A Copy!Just like with option 2, copy the URL from the document you want to share. This time, instead of changing the word "edit" to "preview," you're going to change it to "copy." This is my FAVORITE! Click on the image on the left to see it in action:

Like magic, Mr. Blankety Blank will be prompted to make his very own copy of the document, which will save him those few extra clicks, and you those few extra instructions. It will go directly to his Drive, where he can move it, rename it, and edit it to his heart's desire.

Think of how handy this will be when you want to share copies of documents with students, or spreadsheets with your principal, or presentation templates with your teaching partner, or . . . !